Rudolf G. Wagner

He was Senior Professor at the Department of Chinese Studies at the Heidelberg University and Co-Director of the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows".

Wagner was head of the student government (AStA) of Ludwig Maximilian University Munich from 1968–1969, where he completed his dissertation on the Buddhist studies topic “Hui-yuan慧遠's Questions to Kumarajiva鳩摩羅什” in 1969.

His habilitation thesis “Philology, Philosophy and Politics in the Zhengshi正始 Era”, which he completed at the Free University Berlin in 1981, deals with the Laozi 老子commentary by Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249).

[4] This award, supplemented by a large grant from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, was used to develop the library and the digital research environment at the Heidelberg Institute of Chinese Studies.

Supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, he published three volumes on Wang Bi’s works: Other publications dealt with the Taiping Rebellion; contemporary Chinese literature (prose and historical drama); the development of the early Chinese press, in particular the Shenbao newspaper in Shanghai under Ernest Major; the literature of the “socialist camp”; and the development of a transculturally shared canon of political keywords and images.